


The Lonely Journal Keeper

by Roses_and_rain



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Balance Arc, Character Study, Gen, Lucretia my morally gray darling, Set before Story and Song, Spoilers for Story and Song though, and Stolen Century
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 10:16:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18071501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roses_and_rain/pseuds/Roses_and_rain
Summary: Keeping everyone safe is too big a task for Lucretia to do perfectly, and too big for her to trust to anyone else.





	The Lonely Journal Keeper

It came in waves, her need to fix the world. She’d be just doodling in a notebook and this anxiety would sweep over her, this sense of I’m not doing enough. But Lucretia never really acted on it. And eventually - sometimes in the space of a minute - her panic ebbed, leaving no trace but scribbled pages that she flipped past quickly and tried not to reread.  


All through school, she pushed the feeling off, telling herself she'd worry about the world once she graduated. She'd be able to do so much more with a degree, and besides she was so young. She should take care of herself. Most nights she could convince herself, and others she put on music, stared at the ceiling, and waited for the frantic voice in her mind to recede.  


When she got hired on for the Starblaster mission, she thought her inner critic might shut up. She was setting out to advance scientific understanding of the universe. Who knew what crucial information she and her crewmates might discover? It was the kind of job she’d dreamed of, one where she could sit quietly, observing, and make a real difference. Maybe, she thought, she'd make some friends. Lucretia thought she would be happy.  


Then the world ended, and for one dreadful moment Lucretia felt some kind of relief mixed with her grief. There’s nothing I can do.  
Of course that wasn’t true. Instead she had a myriad of worlds to save, but also a defined role, something certain she could do to help. Each lost planet weighed on her, but she could look forward, push her guilt aside and devote herself to preserving as much of the next world as she could.  


And she had her friends. While she worked, while she quieted the accuser in her head, she talked to Davenport. She went on research expeditions with Barry, laughed at Merle’s jokes, let Lup and Taako pull her into late-night games of truth or dare. In the strange way that the whole crew became accustomed to, colored by constant stress and codependency, Lucretia was happy.  


They all grew callous to danger eventually, and jaded to the oddities of new worlds. The planet of the judges was the first real shock the IPRE team had had since Merle started hitting on that tree a few cycles back. When they reunited they were all shaken, but most of all Lucretia was disillusioned with their life on the run.  
From then on Lucretia had two objectives: to chronicle their journey and to end it. She and her friends needed a home, and she knew she could procure them one and protect it from the Hunger. She wondered sometimes if by making a new world safe she would doom the ones already consumed, but she had to focus on what she could save.  


Her friends didn’t agree, and she'd come to trust them enough to go along with their relic idea. But as she watched her creation tear their new home apart, the guilt that had quieted for so long resurfaced with a vengeance. I’m letting this happen. I should be fixing it. She knew she could fix it. She could save them all. What choice did she have?  


That didn’t make it easy to steal her family’s memories from them. For weeks after she gave their story to the voidfish, she couldn’t stand to meet their blank eyes. But she owed it to them to make this the best home she could, now that it was safe for everyone else. So the Director sent them out into their new world to be happy, pushed down her sorrow, and set out to gather up the weapons they’d created.  


Her existential anxiety didn’t calm the way it had during their travels. She could drown it in her new purpose sometimes, but when she couldn’t there was no Barry to admit her worries to and no Magnus to offer to fight them. There was only empty, loyal Davenport to remind her of all she’d taken from her friends.  


She didn’t know how much he understood, but each time he called out his own name it sounded like an accusation to match her conscience’s. Sometimes she thought the two of them would overwhelm her if she let herself listen. So she didn’t. Instead she threw herself into the Bureau of Balance, into Madame Director, and didn’t remember being eighteen and telling herself, This is all you need to do. Just do this, and then you can think.  


She does not tell herself that now, not consciously. Instead she tells Davenport, when she wants to cry, “Damn it, I’m doing what I can.”


End file.
